Professor Charles Watson AM - Chairman

Professor Charles Watson is an eminent neurobiologist and public health physician. He specialises in brain and spinal cord mapping and has over 25 years’ experience teaching anatomy to medical and science students. During his tenure at the Health Department of Western Australia from 1982 to 1994, Charles’ achievements included setting up the Quit campaign and establishing breast cancer screening in Western Australia. He was appointed Chief Health Officer in 1993. Charles currently holds professorial positions at Curtin, University of Queensland, University of NSW, and the University of WA. He has authored or co-authored 25 books on neuroscience and is best known for his atlas of the rat brain, which has been cited over 85,000 times. He has published over 100 journal articles, and his recent work focuses on gene expression in the developing brain. Charles was made a member of the Order of Australia for his work in brain research and public health in 2004.